Message from a beetle

Winter “Flowers”

I think this is Rubber Rabbitbrush or Chamisa, after the flowers have dried.

Solanum (nightshade) berries

This is the color of winter in New Mexico.

Mimbres (desert willow)

Being a good mother doesn’t end with creating a home where just my children can flourish. A good mother grows into a richly eutrophic old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of life’s beings can flourish.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Hesperaloe

What would make us human beings think we’re something radically different from the other inhabitants of the natural world? Or if different, what grand leap of logic or arrogance would make us think we’re superior? And even if we were superior, what right would that grant to dominate the world, to have our way with it?

~ Kathleen Dean Moore, “Stalking Seals”

Radish 2

Cedar berries

It is human perception that makes the world a gift…A species and a culture that treat the natural world with respect and reciprocity will surely pass on genes to ensuing generations with a higher frequency than the people who destroy it. The stories we choose to shape our behaviors have adaptive consequences.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Cucumber 2

Thank you pollinators.

Cucumber 1

Solanum (silverleaf nightshade)

Imagine walking through a richly inhabited world of Birch people, Bear people, Rock people, beings we think of and therefore speak of as persons worthy of our respect, of inclusion in a peopled world. We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world would be.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass